John Oliver Discusses Donald Trump’s Comments on Immigrants

America has had some time to reflect on the insane comments made by presidential hopeful Donald Trump during the recent debate where he claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, are abducting and eating cats and dogs. But John Oliver still has some thoughts on the matter.

On a new episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver played a clip of the debate, calling it an “exceptional moment in American oratory.” In the clip, Trump asserts, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

“Yeah, that was Donald Trump accusing Haitian immigrants of killing and eating people’s pets,” Oliver replied. “And can you even remember a time when something like that would have been disqualifying? Because I can’t anymore. Republicans have now nominated Trump three times. Democrats have so far lost to him half the time. And the election is still inexplicably close because unfortunately, some Americans watched that and thought, ‘I don’t like how Kamala laughed when he called immigrants dog eaters. That wasn’t very presidential.’”

He added that while “plenty of cat-eating jokes” have been made, “I still want to talk about this both because the chaos Trump stirred up in Springfield is ongoing and because it feels emblematic of his campaign.” Oliver then criticized Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who doubled down on the claims, joking that Vance’s tweet “makes it sound like eating pets is a right reserved for natural-born Americans.”

Oliver played a clip of Vance saying, “The media has tried to say now for days that I’ve made up this story. I haven’t made up anything. I’ve just listened to people who are telling me these things.” To which the late-night host replied, “Wait — ‘if enough people say it, I repeat it’? It is not ideal when an aspiring vice president’s guiding philosophy is indistinguishable from a fucking parrot.”

He then mocked the way Vance pronounces Haiti. “First, there is only one Haiti-related mispronunciation we recognize in this house,” Oliver said, “and it’s Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, delivering the iconic line: ‘And so if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haiteeans.’”